One positive result of the mess in Florida, Wisconsin, and Missouri is
that the liberal shibboleth of campaign finance reform (which Mr. Gore
has said would be "The first bill I will sign when it lands on my
desk") has been trumped by a more obvious and essential reform: Electoral
reform.

During the first one hundred years of our federal Republic elections
carried small stakes because government was a bit player in American life.
The political heroes of our early Republic -- George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, and James Madison -- were noble precisely because they eschewed
power.

Washington
could have been president for life and possibly more, but he not only
declined to run for a third term, he also refrained from using his veto
except when these legislative acts violated the Constitution. George Washington
had a better understanding of the intention of the Constitution than our
nine roped monarchs: He chaired the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison usurped the great and unarticulated
power to interpret the Constitution, but more important than his attitude
towards the Constitution is that fact that during his long tenure as Chief
Justice, Marshall used this power precisely once -- in the particular
case of Marbury v. Madison -- because John Marshall also understood that
respect for a written constitution meant caution in using power.

Those first men who ran the federal government -- contemporaries or participants
in the Revolutionary War and the Constitutional Convention -- were emphatic
in viewing federal power restrictively. The outcome of federal elections
had relatively little effect on the lives of most Americans, and so the
motive to steal elections and swindle voters was small.

State governments had much more formal and practical power than the federal
government, and state governments themselves chose principal officers
under the Constitution. Presidential Electors in every election until
1824 were chosen by state governments, not the people. State legislatures
also selected United States Senators until the Twentieth Century. When
the Federalists under John Adams passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, these
bad laws were stopped by the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky, which
invalidated by resolution those federal statues (the Supreme Court, by
contrast, actually undertook prosecutions and a United States Congressman
was jailed for violating these laws.)

States officials could be venal and corrupt, but the ability of citizens
and capital to migrate made state governments themselves producers of
that ordered liberty which is the only good or service government can
offer. Talented people and interested investors gravitated to those states
where the rule of law meant something -- the natural consequence of market
forces which we understand well when judging the decisions of businesses
to build factories in Syria or surveying the movements of peoples out
of Russia, but which we forget about in judging the self-regulating merits
of true federalism.

When federal power began to gobble state pejoratives and individual rights,
the importance of winning federal elections gained novel importance. The
most conspicuous example is the explosion in campaign expenditures, but
the amounts of money contributed to federal elections is ridiculously
small compared to the financial power of network news organizations, academic
re-education programs, socially correct movies, television shows, music,
art, books, and every other private influence upon the communal mind.
When hundreds of billions of dollars are burned each year by huge corporations
with obvious ideological agenda, is it any surprise that elections themselves
have become corrupted?

The natural impulse of free people towards conservative principles --
the dignity of man, restraint in the use of violence, and acknowledgment
of that vast treasure of collective human experience called history --
cannot be permanently sealed by smug experts or chic elites. Rhetoric
for innocent ears is the first wall in the castle of liberalism, followed
by lies and half-truths calculated to dangle short term self-interest
and group pride into plausible arguments. When this fails, as it ultimately
must, then liberals simply steal.

It is instructive that conservatives are not even charged with stealing
elections, but with buying them (even liberals concede that conservatives
bargain and pay for what they seek.) Theft is no crime for those liberals
who scoff at the meaning of words. Life, to them, is what life was to
Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitter: Action! Inventing votes is simply a morally
neutral act with practical advantages for those cunning or daring enough
to do it.

Action for liberals, however, requires the confidence of others. No one
except those who wield power over others profits from stolen votes. Although
black Americans probably voted overwhelmingly for Al Gore, when a fair
tally of their votes becomes academic, then the need to buy their votes
ends: Why buy what one can steal? If illegal immigrants can register to
vote, then who needs black Americans to register?

The first day of the next Congress, hearings should commence on reforming
the electoral process in America. Some reforms are obvious. Federal law
should prohibit anyone from announcing the results of any election until
every poll in our Republic is closed. Let network anchors twiddle their
thumbs on Election Night, and leave ward bosses desperately uncertain
how many ballots need to be delivered to their candidates and causes.
Any company with an FCC license should be subject to instant revocation
of its license if it reports any votes early, and any person who reveals
votes before the proper time should be subject to criminal and civil penalties.

One standard ballot should be adopted for all elections in which ballots
are cast for federal offices. These should be machine readable, and all
ballots should be run through two separate machines (producing the integrity
of a double blind experiment). If both machine counts agree, then fraud
is very improbable.

Requirements for voting should also be strengthened. Liberals, of course,
will howl like banshees when subject comes up, so it is imperative to
hammer home that murderers and rapists voted in Florida. At a minimum,
an instant background check (like liberals insist we must have before
exercising our rights under the Second Amendment) is reasonable to insure
that criminals at large or felons, in states that deprive felons of the
right to vote, cannot vote.

The voting process itself should also be made more formal. Is there any
reason not to install video cameras directed out towards voters standing
in line, to catch hijinks and intimidation? Is there a good reason not
to have a live scan of fingerprints instead of a signature to insure that
no one votes more than once? Technology exists now to make voting very
convenient and highly reputable. Let liberals say why we should not implement
those changes now.

Voting is one aspect of electoral reform, but not the only one important
to conservatives. Along with this general bill of reform, Congress should
pass a law requiring that all legislative districts -- congressional,
state, municipal, and county -- be "compact, contiguous, and as nearly
as practicable equal in population." Republicans passed laws with
those requirements for congressional seats in the Nineteenth Century;
we should replicate that and expand it to lower levels of government.

Liberals, who are off balance in state governments now, may even support
the ham-handed gerrymandering of old pols when they find liberals themselves
on the business end of a legislative bill. Gerrymandering is also an issue
that throws minorities against minorities. We should bring the balm of
decent and reasonable redistricting, and leave the liberals to try to
placate their unhappy followers.

Above all we must attack! The nation -- indeed, the world -- is watching
what is happening to our Republic. Allowing the existing structure of
voting irregularity, diluted votes, and the whole ugly mess is indefensible.
Liberals have brayed piously about campaign finance reform ever since
they lost a decisive edge in that area. We must not let up a single moment.
Electoral reform!

Bruce Walker is a frequent contributor to The Pragmatist and The Common
Conservative.